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Oct 29 Arabic news network, Al Jazeera broadcasts an excerpt from a video of Osama bin Laden in which the terrorist leader first admits direct responsibility for the September 11, 2001, attacks and references the 2004 U.S. presidential election
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Mar 20 A magnitude 6.6 earthquake hits Fukuoka, Japan, its first major quake in over 100 years. One person is killed, hundreds are injured and evacuated.
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Oct 9 North Korea allegedly tests its first nuclear device
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Aug 21 Hurricane Dean makes its first landfall in Costa Maya, Mexico with winds at 165 mph. Dean is the first storm since Hurricane Andrew to make landfall as a Category 5.
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May 31 Usain Bolt breaks the world record in the 100m sprint, with a wind-legal (+1.7m/s) 9.72 seconds.
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Jun 1 Air France Flight 447 crashes into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Brazil on a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. All 228 passengers and crew were killed.
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Jan 4 The world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa, officially opens in Dubai
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Nov 8 The potentially hazardous asteroid 2005 YU55 passed 0.85 lunar distances from Earth (about 324,600 kilometers or 201,700 miles), the closest known approach by an asteroid of its brightness since 2010 XC15 in 1976.
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Jan 6 A suicide bomber blows himself up at a police station in Damascus, Syria, killing 26 people and wounding 63
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Sep 24 515 people are killed by a magnitude 7.7 earthquake in Balochistan, Pakistan
